Peach (Prunus persica L.) is one of the most important worldwide fresh fruits. Since fruit growth largely depends on adequate water supply, drought stress is considered as the most important abiotic stress limiting fleshy fruit production and quality in peach. Plant responses to drought stress are regulated both at transcriptional and post-transcriptional level. As post-transcriptional gene regulators, miRNAs (miRNAs) are small (19–25 nucleotides in length), endogenous, non-coding RNAs. Recent studies indicate that miRNAs are involved in plant responses to drought. Therefore, Illumina deep sequencing technology was used for genome-wide identification of miRNAs and their expression profile in response to drought in peach. In this study, four sRNA libraries were constructed from leaf control (LC), leaf stress (LS), root control (RC) and root stress (RS) samples. We identified a total of 531, 471, 535 and 487 known mature miRNAs in LC, LS, RC and RS libraries, respectively. The expression level of 262 (104 up-regulated, 158 down-regulated) of the 453 miRNAs changed significantly in leaf tissue, whereas 368 (221 up-regulated, 147 down-regulated) of the 465 miRNAs had expression levels that changed significantly in root tissue upon drought stress. Additionally, a total of 197, 221, 238 and 265 novel miRNA precursor candidates were identified from LC, LS, RC and RS libraries, respectively. Target transcripts (137 for LC, 133 for LS, 148 for RC and 153 for RS) generated significant Gene Ontology (GO) terms related to DNA binding and catalytic activites. Genome-wide miRNA expression analysis of peach by deep sequencing approach helped to expand our understanding of miRNA function in response to drought stress in peach and Rosaceae. A set of differentially expressed miRNAs could pave the way for developing new strategies to alleviate the adverse effects of drought stress on plant growth and development.

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Hyperhydricity is a morphophysiological disorder of plants in tissue culture characterized morphologically by the presence of translucent, thick, curled, and fragile leaves as a result of excessive water intake. Since clonal propagation is a major in vitro technique for multiplying plants vegetatively, the emergence of hyperhydricity-related symptoms causes significant economic losses to agriculture and horticulture. Although numerous efforts have been hitherto devoted to the morphological and anatomical responses of plants to hyperhydricity, the underlying molecular mechanism remains largely unknown. Here, a genome-wide transcriptome analysis was performed to identify differentially expressed genes in hyperhydric and nonhyperhydric leaves of peach [Prunus persica (L.) Batsch]. The RNA sequencing (RNASeq) analysis showed that the expression of >300 transcripts was altered between control and hyperhydric leaf cells. The top 30 differentially expressed transcripts (DETs) were related to the posttranscriptional regulators of organelle gene expression and photosynthesis, cellular elimination, plant cuticle development, and abiotic stress response processes. The expression of 10 DETs was also conformed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) in hyperhydric and nonhyperhydric leaves. As a complex biological process, hyperhydricity alters the expression of various transcripts including transcription factor (Myb2), RNA binding protein (pentatricopeptide, PPR), transporter protein (ABC), and Laccase3. Thus, this genome-wide transcriptome profiling study may help elucidate the molecular mechanism of hyperhydricity.

Sport, an element of universal culture, is a prominent tool that brings individuals with different languages, races and religions together. Sport is generally defined as activities that positively affect the psychological health of people and bring about social and moral benefits besides its physical benefits. Mental well-being is defined as the individual's awareness of their own abilities, their abilities to overcome stress in life, being productive and useful in business life and contributing to community via the their ability (WHO, 2004). Positivity is defined as the main determinant of subjective well-being and is expressed as a tendency to evaluate all aspects of life that is already good. This study aimed to investigate whether sport is effective on mental well-being and positivity. In the study pre-test, post-test experimental design with control group was used and "Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being (WEMWBS)" scale developed by Tennant et al. (2007), which was adapted into Turkish by Keldal (2015) and "The Positivity Scale" scale developed by Caprara and et al. (2012), and adapted into Turkish by Çıkrıkçı, Çiftçi and Gençdoğan (2015) were used as the data collection tools. When the original form of mental wellbeing scale compared with its version adapted into Turkish are compared, the reliability coefficient Cronbach Alpha was found to be as .92. On the other hand, the internal consistency coefficient for the Positivity Scale was found to be .75 and its test-retest reliability coefficient was found to be .91. As parametric assumptions are met, Variance Analysis, Tukey test, Paired-Samples t-test was used. For the analysis of data obtained through counting, Chi Square was used and level of significance was taken as 0.05. The study group is composed by forming 3 groups of 20 students from 10th grade students. The groups were equalled in terms of some variables like age, gender, sports background etc. The groups were called as the sports activities group, social activities group and the control group. While the participants in the experimental group were engaged in regular and scheduled sports activities including training and contests, the participants in the social activities group engaged in regular social activities. The participants in the control group led their routine lives. After a period of 10 weeks, the tests given at the beginning of the study were administrated again, and test scores of the students in all three groups were compared.According to the results of the study, when the pre-test and post-test positivity scores of the individuals in all three groups were compared, the differences between the groups were not found to be insignificant (p>0.05). When post-test mental well-being scores were compared, the difference was found significant (p<0.05). It was seen that the source of difference was between the sports activities group and the control group.In terms of positivity scores, the difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of the sports activities group and the social...

Since transcriptome analysis provides genome-wide sequence and gene expression information, transcript reconstruction using RNA-Seq sequence reads has become popular during recent years. For non-model organism, as distinct from the reference genome-based mapping, sequence reads are processed via de novo transcriptome assembly approaches to produce large numbers of contigs corresponding to coding or non-coding, but expressed, part of genome. In spite of immense potential of RNA-Seq-based methods, particularly in recovering full-length transcripts and spliced isoforms from short-reads, the accurate results can be only obtained by the procedures to be taken in a step-by-step manner. In this chapter, we aim to provide an overview of the state-of-the-art methods including (i) quality check and pre-processing of raw reads, (ii) the pros and cons of de novo transcriptome assemblers, (iii) generating non-redundant transcript data, (iv) current quality assessment tools for de novo transcriptome assemblies, (v) approaches for transcript abundance and diferential expression estimations and inally (vi) further mining of transcriptomic data for particular biological questions. Our intention is to provide an overview and practical guidance for choosing the appropriate approaches to best meet the needs of researchers in this area and also outline the strategies to improve on-going projects.

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Crocus istanbulensis (B.Mathew) Rukšāns is one of the most endangered Crocus species in the world and has an extremely limited distribution range in Istanbul. Our recent field work indicates that no more than one hundred individuals remain in the wild. In the present study, we used genome skimming to determine the complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequences of six C. istanbulensis individuals collected from the locus classicus. The cp genome of C. istanbulensis has 151,199 base pairs (bp), with a large single-copy (LSC) (81,197 bp), small single copy (SSC) (17,524 bp) and two inverted repeat (IR) regions of 26,236 bp each. The cp genome contains 132 genes, of which 86 are protein-coding (PCGs), 8 are rRNA and 38 are tRNA genes. Most of the repeats are found in intergenic spacers of Crocus species. Mononucleotide repeats were most abundant, accounting for over 80% of total repeats. The cp genome contained four palindrome repeats and one forward repeat. Comparative analyses among other Iridaceae species identified one inversion in the terminal positions of LSC region and three different gene (psbA, rps3 and rpl22) arrangements in C. istanbulensis that were not reported previously. To measure selective pressure in the exons of chloroplast coding sequences, we performed a sequence analysis of plastome-encoded genes. A total of seven genes (accD, rpoC2, psbK, rps12, ccsA, clpP and ycf2) were detected under positive selection in the cp genome. Alignment-free sequence comparison showed an extremely low sequence diversity across naturally occurring C. istanbulensis specimens. All six sequenced individuals shared the same cp haplotype. In summary, this study will aid further research on the molecular evolution and development of ex situ conservation strategies of C. istanbulensis.

Five species of weevils in the tribe Phyllobiini (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Entiminae) [Phyllobius glaucus (Scopoli, 1763); Phyllobius virideaeris (Laicharting, 1781); Parascythropus mirandus Desbrochers, 1875; Oedecnemidius pictus (Steven, 1829); Oedecnemidius saltuarius (Heyden, 1888)] were studied to generate analyses of their relationships. Those interspecific relationships were inferred from morphological characters as well as 18S rDNA sequencing data. Phylogenetic trees based on sequencing data were built with Neighbor Joining (NJ), Maximum Likelihood (ML), and Maximum Parsimony (MP) algorithms; morphology-based trees were created using UPGMA (Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean). The trees have a similar topology.